Language can really make communication difficult. That’s why Shakespeare just made up words when there wasn’t one to fit what he was really saying. He invented as many as 3,000 words. There are more than 17,000 different words in his writings. Shakespeare was working for poetic precision. There was no adjective for the state of suspicion. So, he invented “suspicious.” There was no word for the condition of being covered in blood. So, he invented “bloody.” In other cases, it was to be more specific, not because there wasn’t a word but because the word there was didn’t quite fit the condition he was trying to describe. He used the word “flawed,” for example, instead of “broken.”

It is said that Shakespeare invented the word “torture.” Like most of his words, he created it by changing the part of speech. The word “torturous” already existed, from the French. Shakespeare made it a verb and look what happens. It invites a noun for the person, place or thing that “tortures.” Now, we have a “torturer.” Semantics is a big deal.

The point of this blog is to examine my liberalism. What is it? How does it fit in today’s usage of the word. If Barack Obama is a socialist, then I’m off the left end of the right-left scale. I think he’s center-left. Those farther left than I practically call him George W. Bush. OK, so I’m to the right of them. If this were a map, I’d have to place myself at left-center-left. So, is that liberal? My Republican friends think it is, but David Sirota and Katrina van den Heuvel don’t think so. I’m not sure what David Corn would think or Rachel Maddow.

OK, let’s be inspired by Shakespeare and look at it poetically by delineating the denotation and connotation of the word “liberal.” Maybe we need a new word for me. Or, maybe I am a liberal and those to the left of me need a new name.

Denotation, according to the Oxford American Dictionary of Current Usage:

adj.
1. given freely; ample; abundant.
2. (often foll. by with) giving freely; generous; not sparing.
3. open-minded; not prejudiced.
4. not strict or rigorous; (of interpretation) not literal.
5. for general broadening of the mind; not professional or technical (liberal studies).
6. (a) favoring individual liberty and political and social reform. (b) ( Liberal ) of or characteristic of Liberals or a Liberal party.
7. (Theol.) regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change (liberal Protestant; liberal Judaism).

n.
1. a person of liberal views.
2. ( Liberal ) a supporter or member of a Liberal party.

- ORIGIN Middle English: via Old French from Latin liberalis, from liber ‘free (man)’.

(The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English. Oxford University Press, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Howard Community College – Columbia.  10 May 2010  <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t21.e17662>)

I think that’s me in noun form; I am a person of liberal views. When it’s capitalized, it should be referring to a political party or movement. We don’t have one of those. We lower-case liberal tend to vote with the Democratic Party in elections. We are establishment liberals, I suppose. So, did liberals vote for Ralph Nader or did Liberals? It turns out the privileged liberals voted for Nader. (New Political Science, Volume 28, Issue 2, June 2006 , pages 229 – 244) I find these folks to be the Bobos of David Brooks’ very funny book Bobos in Paradise that describes rich baby boomers in the 90s. Brooks at his snarky best.

It’s too muddled. There’s no good operating definition for the people on the left of the political spectrum in the United States of America in the 2011th year of the western calendar. Who are we?

One idea is to resurrect the terminology of the “founding fathers.” I believe that I might want to be a Federalist. I believe in a strong central government that can keep an eye out on the whole country. I believe that the federal government is an important safeguard for states that may go off half-cocked like Arizona. The federal judicial system will fix that because we have one. Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snow and other centrists could bring back the Democratic-Republican party that was formed at the time of the Constitution. The left could resurrect and be proud of wanting real socialism in this country. Call yourselves Socialists. Lay claim to the belief and get a good PR campaign going. Organize!

For all the education of the liberal wing of the American political system, we are lousy communicators. We are true to our denotation in connotation: we are not strict or rigorous; (of interpretation) not literal. We are open-minded; not prejudiced.

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

This is what Obama says that the healthcare bill on the table does for people.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting

I support the passage of this legislation as soon as possible. I can only afford catastrophic health insurance with a $1,000 deductible because I am self-employed and starting a new small business. That means I can’t just go to the doctor if I’m sick because it’ll cost $75. I can’t get prescriptions, not the brand names, because they can cost hundreds of dollars a pill. This is very immediate for me, personally. If they pass this, I’ll be able to buy insurance as though I worked for a company with thousands of employees, instead of canceling a policy purchased as an individual family that cost more than $2,000 a month. They won’t be able to deny me coverage for a pre-existing back condition.

Honestly, I would prefer socialized medicine. I would prefer that medical care was seen the same as fire departments. In cities, we pay for fire departments through our taxes. In the country, they get grants donations and the firemen are volunteers. But if the firetruck comes to your house to put out a fire, they don’t give you a bill for the thousands of dollars that it cost. We share that cost as a social unit, either through voluntary contributions or through taxation. Either way, every town and city has a fire department, thanks to Benjamin Franklin’s idea (He also invented the public library system. Talk about socialist!) Or, I could say I want it like the road system. If you drive, you buy gas and you pay the transportation tax. That tax is used to fund the federal highway administration, which pays for the interstate highway system. Or, you pay it in property taxes and the city or town in which you live pays for the roads. In other places, they take a toll to pay for the maintenance. (Though, the highways and roads totally tell you where you can and can’t go, don’t they? Socialists! Why can’t you just drive through people’s back yards if you want? Stupid government and its laws!)

Our heroes are police and firefighters and astronauts and the military. These are all public servants who are paid for by the taxes that we pay. We hold them in the highest esteem because they hold themselves to higher standards than we do in the private sector. I want to add doctors to that list. We don’t think of them as heroes, do we? We think of them as rich. What if we thought of them as people who were devoted to the best care they could provide, the same as the Navy Seals.

Economically, the more people that are in the pool of insured, the less it costs, because the risk is shared by many. The argument is that the government shouldn’t run it. Well, the thing is that if it’s not a government or a non-profit, then the goal isn’t healthcare anymore, it’s profit. That’s the whole point of for-profit companies. That’s “their whole got-dam’d raison-etre.”

There nothing in here that says the government is going to tell you what your healthcare has to be. You can always buy whatever the hell you want. Just pay for it all on your own at the price they will charge you. And pay for your own abortions.

I want the government to run the system through which I purchase my healthcare, because it saves me money and they’ll be making sure everyone gets it right, like the firefighters. I hear the VA is really good, though they did get caught with some deteriorating facilities a few years ago. How long did it take before private nursing homes were held accountable for the deaths through neglect? When the VA got caught, everything changed like that *snap*. That doesn’t seem to be what’s going on with the banking system now. I have had far fewer problems with the government, including the MVA than I have with my health insurance companies or my bank over the years.

It really is about what I think works, instead of a hackneyed ideology. I do not believe that the water coming into my house would be safe if it was run by private industry or through my own control. Wells are contaminated all the time and the homeowners don’t test their water as much as the City of Baltimore does. I know my water is clean. The EPA checks on the City of Baltimore to make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to. The City of Baltimore keeps meticulous records of their testing. And, I have confidence that my water is clean. i pay a much lower fee for that than if I had to buy water.

But, unfortunately, that’s not in the healthcare reform. What is in there is an insurance exchange where insurance companies compete across state lines, a ban on the denial of care for pre-existing conditions, funding for more people to get insurance. The market would not be able to sustain employer-provided healthcare for very long. The costs are rising too quickly. The exchange is what will replace it and employers will contribute an amount to help off-set costs. It’s not socialized medicine, but it’s a start.

So, that is why I hope that the Congress of the United States gets it shit together and passes healthcare reform. If they don’t, and anything happens to me or my family, I’ll be asking for a handout from those people who are working against this bill.

(The following is hereby copyrighted this day March 7th 2010 by me, but I am more than happy to sell you the rights.)

I have figured out a way to help balance the budget and move politicians toward serving the people who elected them. It takes advantage of self-interest and greed in the service of good AND increases civic participation.

Here’s how it works. We legalize bets on the votes of politicians and the predictions of pundits. We manage the bets using the model of eTrade meets Vegas. In the interest of separation of powers, we separate pundits and politicians into two exchanges (betting parlors).

You can call it “investing” if you want. It’s a slightly more moral metaphor. You can put your money where your ideology is. Or you can just gamble. Ireland takes bets on our presidential elections and the oddsmakers are generally right. But, this is America. Let’s go much, much bigger than they do.

An MSNBC pundit says she thinks that the healthcare plan will pass by Easter break. Bet on it. A Fox pundit says that Republicans will block healthcare. Bet on it. A CNN reporter says that the Democrats will cannibalize themselves and defeat healthcare. Bet on it. A CNBC reporter says that a particular Senator will vote for it because of the big contributions of a particular business interest. Place your bets. Bet directly on the pundit or on the prediction.

In the political betting parlor (investment house), we bet on how politicians will vote on every single thing that they vote on. Everything, including procedural votes like cloture or motion to table.

(Repeat whole copyright thing here. Seriously, someone should buy this from me. You would be so freaking rich. I just need a few million so that I can go to graduate school in literature and not have to worry about getting a job when I am done.)

We’ll need a new television or internet network. That’s easy. Right? (Actually, I have no idea, but let’s say it’s easy. The plan just falls into place after that, so, let’s agree that it’s easy.)

We report on politics and punditry in the style of financial reporting or sports handicapping. We can provide the research for our viewers’ investments (bets).We report on the ideology and history of the pundit and the politician (but we also look at the donors to the politician).

In our new exchanges, we will have a live betting parlor/trading floor for the theater of it and to launch a television series in the off hours. (Bets are all really made on the internet.) We can air other reality TV shows on the network, i.e. a series competition show to get a job on the floor of the betting parlor. Our lockup shows will be about white collar and political criminals. Plenty of room for talk shows. Political biography shows would be big hits. (Have you read “Game Change?” Big hits.)

Possible outcomes:

Voters are given a complete view of their politicians, including how and why they vote on issues. Voters kind of like when their interests are represented. They tend to vote based on that. (Even though the Supreme Court gave corporations the right to buy advertising, the corporations don’t actually get to vote.)

Pundits will be thoroughly educated on issues and will make predictions based on that education rather than on a vested interest in the outcome or a particular ideology. Their predictions would be tracked as research for future bets. If a pundit is wrong time after time, then it would be transparent, like if a football receiver can’t hold on to the ball. I imagine that networks would then be pressured to hire people who are able to accurately make predictions.

By playing to our greed and our inherent competitiveness, we  save ourselves. Imagine the end result: a reality show/news network that rewards viewers for smart investments in democracy. Would you have won money on Bill Clinton’s impeachment? Or his acquittal? (no, yes respectively) Does Sean Hannity know what he’s talking about? (I suspect I’d win by betting that he didn’t.)

Pay 25-30% to the government in taxes on all transactions. Either the bettor or the house would pay taxes on the transaction, depending on who wins. But someone’s paying taxes and the national debt goes down.

You can reach me at this channel, if you’d like to make me an offer for the idea. Don’t you think it’s worth at least a couple of million dollars. Let’s all make some money, people!

jabberjw is the pseudonym for a beginning blogger who makes her living in arts education and as an adjunct professor, so has no health insurance or retirement plan. In other words, I could really use the money from the idea, but can’t tell you who I am. E-mail me at this station. I take Paypal.

I am not someone who is going to defend the adulterers like Tiger Woods and John Edwards. They should be punished in one of the circles of hell. If it’s not possible for them to keep their dicks inside their pants when they are not with their wives, then they are weak and deserving of derision. However, I am also do not believe that the women in these stories should be let off the hook. They belong in a worse circle in hell than the men. And, women must be the police on this beat.

This is countervailing wisdom, I know. The poor women were seduced by the power of these men: their charm, their money, their good looks, their status. He said he loved her. He said he would leave his wife for her. Fuck that. These women committed a far worse sin than the men did. They set back the cause of women by knowingly fucking over a sister.

The sisterhood has a set of rules. Women who follow these rules are powerful, strong and invincible. Women who don’t follow these rules are not worthy of the oxygen that the planet provides. The rules of the sisterhood are simple. The first is that women are strongest when we recognize our differences and exploit our gifts rather than our weaknesses. The second is that sisters protect sisters.

But, you tarty whores think that our strengths lie entirely in our sexuality and our ability to manipulate men with that sexuality. Bullshit. Our strengths lie in empathy and intelligence. Feel free to be beautiful and sexual, but do not break the rules. There are enough unmarried men in this world for you to get your ya-yas off with them. Don’t fuck with another sister’s man. Use your empathy. Do you remember when your best friend slept with your man? If you apply your intelligence to the situation, then you can realize that’s how you are making the wife feel. Once you do that, you’re using your empathy. Hopefully, at this point, you realize you’re a piece of shit that knowingly wrecked a sister’s world for your own benefit. Maybe even a sister with children of her own, daughters. That’s not how a sister rolls.

A sister doesn’t need the sexual attentions of a man to feel valuable. She already knows she’s valuable. OK, maybe she’s learning her value. Then, she doesn’t need the attentions of a married man. Use your empathy! How could you ever knowingly do that to another woman? She is not your rival. She is your sister. She is trying to navigate this world in the same way that you are. Perhaps her marriage isn’t perfect. That’s her world to figure out, not yours. Perhaps her marriage is even falling apart. Then, fucking wait until it does. If this asshole is worth your time and effort, then he can end a relationship before he starts a new one. It is your responsibility because men have been historically absolved of that. It’s up to you to be the better person.

Feminism is in a weird place right now. While I looked away, popular feminism became power through sexuality again instead of power through intelligence and accomplishment. The clearest metaphor for this is the resurrection of high heels. Originally, heels were worn by men in the 18th century. France, of course. High heels were a sign that the man was not a laborer. There was no way that anyone could do labor while sporting two-inch spikes with a bow. Fingernails have the same sociological history. If you labored in a field, your nails would break, ipso facto, rich people have long nails. Men then wanted it clear that their women also didn’t work. And then women began to wear heels and have long nails. Men stopped wearing heels within 100 years. Women still wear them.

In the last 10 years, heels have become higher and higher. Pushing aside the fact that most women can’t walk on these 4-6″ stilts and look like they’re carrying a load in their diapers, heels are bad for our bodies and ultimately displace our vital organs. Seriously, they displace our vital organs.

And, yet, they are de rigeur in fashion now. Look up and ask one of these women why they wear them. I’ve done that. They say they feel powerful in these heels. They feel sexy in these heels. They feel unconquerable. The dominatrix in them has an acceptable place for expression. I’ll ask them again in 10 years when they have bad backs, fallen arches and depression. I’ll ask when they have broken up someone’s marriage only to find themselves alone again as the man moves on to someone else. Or they get their man only to discover that now they’re the victims of adultery.

Feminism has failed if women only find their their power through sexuality. Women have failed. You see, your powerful sexuality only lasts about 15 years of your long life. After that, it costs a lot of money to keep that shit going. And, by then, your intelligence and empathy have atrophied. And, what have you to show for it? No man, no friends and the derision of history.

The sad truth is that expressing your power through sexuality is a disservice to yourself and to all other women. It perpetuates the myth that men want continued. Looking at hot women in tight dresses wearing stiletto heels is a sexual fantasy that they don’t want to give up. Their hard-on is imminently more valuable to them than your success. (Use your intelligence!)

So, women, let me sum up. Women are not your rivals. They are your allies. Don’t fuck them over. Men are not the prize for your efforts. They are your companions and your partners. Don’t diminish yourself to get them. They’re never worth that. You’ll just be diminished.

And, keep your hands off other women’s men, for fuck’s sake. You’re wrecking a woman’s life when you do that. You’re also wrecking yours. And, the man? He gets to keep his Nike contract.

Note: For clarification. The last time I was cheated on was in high school. My best friend slept with my boyfriend while I was on Christmas vacation. I walked away from both of them. Their relationship lasted for two weeks. I never spoke to her again. I did, however, lure him back a year later, only to stomp on him. Don’t fuck with a sister.